Saturday, June 18, 2016

Four Days in Seward

On day eight of our trip we drove into Seward, Alaska to stay with Seth's friend Catie. Her parents were nice enough to let us park our vehicle in their driveway so we didn't have to go searching for camp grounds every night. Since we were at a house it was also very nice to have access to showers and Wifi whenever we wanted. After awhile on the road we really started to appreciate those things that many take for granted. :) Seward is a small town located along the Gulf of Alaska, two hours south of Anchorage. It becomes a draw to tourists during the summer because of the whale watching, chartered fishing, and tours of the Kenai Peninsula. 

Our first day in Seward we went hiking-- or I should say more like mountain climbing. At first we were going to hike up to Exit Glacier and walk on the ice, that is until we found out that Catie's dog Bella couldn't come with. Plan B was to hike to the bowl on Mount Marathon. Now let me tell you some info about this Mountain. Every year in July there is a race where people run up to the top (3,022 ft tall), and then run all the way back down. Catie was telling us that some people can complete the race in about an hour. Yikes. Catie and a few of her brothers actually run the race every year. The race course is different than the route we took to the top (we took the long way) but it totals about 3 miles. Getting to the top on race day takes about 40 minutes and the descent takes about 10 or 15 (obviously give or take a few minutes depending on the person). We however, took a very different route to the top on the other side of the mountain. Originally we were going to go about half way up the mountain the what is called 'The Bowl', but then Mat decided he was going to go all the way to the top, so we all came with. So, after four miles up hill we finally got to the top of the snow-capped mountain. It was a wonderful view of harbor and we could see all the mountains around us that were much much taller. (I couldn't imagine trying to summit one of those!) 


Trail on Mount Marathon 
Waterfall along the hiking trail
Now for the descent. We decided to take the race course route down since it was much faster than trekking all the way back from where we came from. What we didn't know was how crazy steep it was going to be! For all of my family that has been to Pierce Stocking in MI, imagine going down for over two miles on snow and then loose shale. For those who don't know what this is like, imagine not being able to see even a couple hundred yards in front of you because it is so steep and appears to just drop off. It was intense. (and people run down this!)  However, I can imagine it might have been easier to run if our muscles hadn't been so tired from climbing all the way up. For Mat and I while we were on the mountain, it was tough. It was horrible. Why would anyone do this?! But once we got to the bottom of the trail it all became clear. It was success. We had climbed a mountain and got to see some of the most wonderful views. We had summited a mountain! Now I look back on that day feeling proud of myself, thankful for Catie showing us the way, and being able to say 'I did it!'. 


Mat and I at the top of Mount Marathon

Seth and Catie at the top of Mount Marathon

Day two was a bit more low key. We had one of the best breakfast burritos with sausage gravy at a train car restaurant. The restaurant only has six booths that fit four people each, but it was oh so good. We walked around town and ate at the Seward Brewing Company. Neither Mat or I are beer drinkers, but Seth and Catie enjoyed a tall cold one before we went to check out the tide pools. It was relaxing walking along the black sand beach searching for  little animals left behind and waiting for the tide to come back in. I was disappointed I didn't have my camera with, but we saw starfish, anemones, hermit crabs, and other little creatures of the deep. That night we set out to camp along the road heading into Exit Glacier Park. The campsite we finally decided on was in the river bed of the Exit Glacier River. It was located between two mountains and there were many meandering streams shooting off of the main channel. Here we ate dinner and sat by the warm fire until going to bed in the Jeep.

Day three was spent in town. Around noon we went to lunch at a Greek restaurant and had gyros. They were delicious. Then we walked around many of the small shops and saw more of the touristy souvenirs. We stopped by the Sea Life Center for a few hours, which focuses its' exhibits around the aquatic animals found in Alaska. There was a touch pond where we got to poke at a whole bunch of small sea creatures, as well as watch sea lions, seals, otters, and local birds in the other exhibits. The most fun was watching the male sea lion, Pilot, being fed. He was 1,400 lbs and huge! Apparently he is only a little over half of his full grown size which will be about 2,500 lbs when he gets a few years older. Pilot was swimming, flopping around, and barking while he was getting fed 40 lbs of fish. After this we went into the harbor to see the fish being weighed and filleted by the fishing boats. The biggest one we saw was a 110 lb halibut. 


Eagle on Bear Lake (photo credit to Seth Aasen)
Eagle on Bear Lake (photo credit to Seth Aasen)
The last day of our stay we slept in pretty late and again we decided to go to the train car restaurant and for lunch (it was just so good, we had to go back). Then we went to Adventure60 to rent canoes. We were dropped off at Bear Lake and left to explore until we wanted picked up. While paddling along we saw many birds and Salmon. At one point Mat and I had a loon only three feet away from our canoe! Seth and Catie saw a whole bunch of bald eagles at the mouth of a stream where salmon had congregated together. After getting picked up from two hours of canoeing, we checked out the Weir. Bear Lake was up stream from a Weir that let only a certain amount of salmon through each day (or else they would overtake the lake and ruin the ecosystem). The rest of the fish went to a company that sold them to local restaurants or markets.  It was a man made dam that the salmon had to jump up in order to get to Bear Lake and later on to their spawning grounds. Once they got up the dam, some were let through, and some weren't (due to preserving the lake). We watched the little guys try to make it up the rushing water for quite some time-- it was so entertaining.

The next day was bitter sweet. In the morning Catie had to go to work, and we were going to start our way north to the Dalton Highway. 

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Driving on the ALCAN

Beginning of the ALCAN
Starting on day four of our journey we found ourselves finally on the Alaska-Canadian Highway (the ALCAN). This road would take us all the way into the Yukon Territory and then drop us off right past the boarder in Alaska. This was a twisty-turny road that took us through some of the most beautiful mountains and valleys we had ever seen. 

Driving the ALCAN is something most people never get to do in life. I now highly recommend it. If you're one that enjoys camping and being in the amazing out doors, this is for you. Along the way we saw many semi-truck drivers, RV's, motorcyclists, and bicyclists, who were all going from one side of the ALCAN to the other. It was amazing watching some of the bicyclists along their journey working their way up the hills. Kudos to them. It looked awful, yet I can imagine the reward of pushing yourself to the limit and being able to say you finished the ALCAN on a bike makes it well worth it. We just kindly drove past and waved-- admiring their will power from afar. 


Welcome to the Yukon on the ALCAN Highway 
The ALCAN transported us form Dawson Creek, BC, to Tok, Alaska. While the road doesn't really end until Delta Junction, Alaska, we will be getting to the end of it later in our trip (this would be a totally 1387 miles long). We turned off of the ALCAN in Tok, Alaska, just a few hundred miles away from Delta Junction. While winding it's way through Canada, the road crosses through the Rocky mountains, offering some of the best views. At the highest point we reached 4,250 feet in elevation at Summit Lake, BC. 


View on the ALCAN
Although we didn't stop for many the attractions, we did stop at a tiny little turn off by Racing River and got to bask in some of the amazing views from outside the vehicle. Taking the Jeep just a couple hundred yards off the highway we pulled off into a clearing overlooking the river. It was bright blue, cold as ice, and had many little channels running alongside the main one. Seth decided to test out the glacial water by jumping in- and then proceeding to quickly run back out. I simply decided that dipping my feet in would suffice. 
View of the Racing River
View of the Racing River
 We also stopped at the Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake. This is a place where people bring signs from anywhere in the world to hand on the hundreds of posts driven into the ground. The signs seemingly never end once you get inside. We had read about it in The Alaskan Milepost book, but never expected to stop (shout out to Jim Meyer for letting us use this amazing book :) ).  When we pulled in for gasoline and it was right next to us, we decided to give it a peek for a few minutes. Right off the bat we noticed a Holmen, WI sign. This is when we knew we had to discover more. We also found Wausau WI, Yuengleng (for the beer lovers in our family), and North Port (it was from Washington, but in our hearts it was from Michigan). There were many others including home made signs from Australia, Holland, Germany, and many more. We were sad we hadn't known about this before, or we would have made a sign marking our little slice of the Pan-American Highway history. 
Sign Post Forest 

Yuengling in Sign Post Forset

Wausau sign in the Sign Post Forest

North Port sign in the Sign Post Forest


Holmen WI sign in the Sign Post Forest


The little camping places we stayed at were free. They offered no amenities other than a pit toilet, but we didn't need anything other than the Jeep anyway. One was called Duhu Lake. This had probably 15 campsites and a small dock the lake. The other camp we made was on a trail off of a rest stop. There were only a handful of sites along the trails, but it was next to another pretty river. However, the mosquitoes were terrible. So far our Wildlife viewing count stands at 7 bears, 1/2 a moose (it was dead), 2 elk, 12 buffalo, 0 caribou, and 7 big horn sheep. 

So far the trip has been great. We have learned some of the kinks in our daily life and now have smoothed them out. We like to find free campsites- and often drive until our required end time, and then start searching for them. If we can't find a site that is free, we try to keep it under $10. All of us drive and we have a rotation of who will be sleeping in either the Jeep platform, or in the RTT.